Day 29 - "Moro Moro Moro Moro Moro"

Ongwediva to Opuwo, Opuwo Country Lodge

We can’t believe it’s been a month since we left, a twelfth of the way through our trip already!

With the help of a Namibia touring map we’d planned our routes yesterday and today so that we could take the shortest possible path to Opuwo, while minimizing the amount of gravel road we had to negotiate.

It all started well as we drove through a number of flooded townships, though some of the roads had been damaged by the flooding. This part of Namibia was much more populated than where we had been earlier – there were lots of town and villages, with locals walking along the road in the rain, as well as cattle, goats and donkeys everywhere. It was also apparent that campervans are rarely seen in this area, judging by the number of people that stared at us as we drove past.

We started getting nervous when the turnoff we expected to see based on our map turned out to be a flooded gravel road – way too deep for us to risk. So we kept driving to another turnoff further along. This took us onto a gravel road into a more “traditional” Namibian village (called Onesi). We took a really bumpy road at the edge of the village that we thought would get us back on track, but this was a much worse road than before, and we decided it also wasn’t worth risking, as we were getting further and further away from “civilization”. After a few u-turns in Onesi (with bemused locals looking on), we headed back to the next option – much longer than originally planned – which included gravel road for hundreds of kilometers. We had to press on though – we weren’t going to admit defeat!

There was a short stretch of tarred road as we approached Ruacana, the border crossing to Angola (so now we can say we’ve seen Angola), before getting back onto gravel. After more bone-shaking driving we finally saw a sign that said “Opuwo” – meaning we weren’t hopelessly lost. We eventually made it to the tarred stretch of C41 which took us into Opuwo – our base for a trip to see a Himba village. K had watched a documentary (twice) on an English girl who lived in a village for a month so was really keen to visit there

We booked a tour to visit the Himba for that afternoon. The tour cost included a gift for the village, as well as a very knowledgeable guide, who was half Himba and half Herero, and spoke very good English. Everything he told us was fascinating, we were told some basic Himba words and questions to expect. He explained that they would be shocked that M only had one wife and we only had one child. They do not approve of school as they are worried (rightly so) that it would destroy their culture.

The women only use water for drinking, none touches their skin. They cover themselves in red ochre twice a day and only wear a goat skin around their waist plus different jewelry that signifies their marital status, number of children etc. The men however pretty much wear regular clothes i.e. tshirts and trousers!

There are villages everywhere and our guide only ever visits the same one every three weeks, partly to ensure the Himba don’t become reliant on tourism. We walked around the village shaking hands and greeting them (saying “Moro Moro”), and we were then shown into their sleeping hut, where we were shown how the Himba make their “perfume”, which is by burning herbs and wafting the smoke over themselves (somehow I can't see it catching on back home). They then finished with singing and dancing, and we presented them with our gift, which was a few supermarket bags of food and some matches.

One of the older Himba women then asked if she could go in our car to the hospital as she had been ill for a week and it is an 18km walk each way. The others loaded her up with fresh produce for her to sell on the streets the next morning to pay for her doctors visit. She would sleep wherever she could on the streets for the night as the hospital is cheaper in the mornings. The Himba can be seen in the streets in the towns around the area going about their daily business – it’s the kind of Africa that you really didn’t think existed anymore, except maybe in old National Geographic magazines!